Earthquake Day - Armenia

Description

he Spitak Earthquake also called Gyumri Earthquake was a tremor with a moment magnitude of 7.2, that took place on December 7, 1988 at 11:41 local time (07:41 UTC) in the Spitak region of Armenia, then part of the Soviet Union.

Local housing infrastructure (particularly schools and hospitals) performed poorly in the earthquake and this resulted in 50,000 lost lives. It has been estimated that if the earthquake had occurred 5 minutes later, children would have left their schools' unstable buildings. This short time delay could have saved many lives.

The entire city of Spitak was destroyed, and there was partial damage to the nearby cities of Gyumri and Vanadzor. The tremor also caused damage to many surrounding villages.